


The Hand You're Dealt

by lacrimalis



Category: Cuphead (Video Game)
Genre: Cartoon Physics, Fear of Discovery, Head Juices Are Canonically Emotions, In Hell We Sleep During The Day, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Minor Humiliation, Take A Sip Babes, The Softest of Vores, so i mean
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2019-01-10 03:41:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12290463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lacrimalis/pseuds/lacrimalis
Summary: King Dice can't help feeling bitter over the Devil's latest favorites. It's bad enough that he lost face by losing to them -- but now he has to work with the insufferable little firebrands! And as a constant reminder of his inferiority, King Dice can't go a day without Cuphead mean mugging and taking potshots at him when no one else is looking.But King Dice is old hat at playing the hand he's dealt. And Cuphead will fold, if he knows what's good for him.





	The Hand You're Dealt

King Dice can't help feeling bitter over the Devil's latest favorites. It's bad enough that he lost face by losing to them -- but now he has to work with the insufferable little firebrands!

“Cuphead!” King Dice snaps, and the young man scurries over. King can almost hear the slide whistles and horns accompanying Cuphead's bumbling. He sighs. “Bring this to Table Five. And don't drop this one.”

Cuphead rolls his eyes, and quick as a whip, he snaps his fingers and sends a bullet of flame at King’s ankles. King Dice's quick reflexes save his pants leg and the platter of drinks, but not his pride. He glares at Cuphead, whose smug grin burns King up just as if the shot had met its mark. King Dice clenches his free hand and his teeth and takes a deep breath. Cuphead crosses his arms, and dares him with his eyes to retaliate.

And oh, how he yearns to do so...

“Cuphead!” The voice of reason hisses urgently. Mugman dashes to his brother’s side in a puff of smoke, a hand ready to place on the porcelain provocateur’s shoulder. “The night shift is over in an hour... Please don’t make a scene!”

Miraculously, Cuphead’s puffed-out chest deflates. He reciprocates the hand on his brother’s shoulder and gives him a half-hug. In gratitude, perhaps, or -- the King nearly gags to think -- _affection._ “Yeah, you're right. Thanks for looking out.”

The ebb and flow of the casino’s business is unrelenting, and so Mugman can’t justify staying to watch how it all shakes out. He disengages from his brother with a hopeful smile, and he casts a furtive glance in King Dice’s direction, before hurrying off to continue serving the impatient patrons.

Cuphead’s expression transforms into something that is, on the surface, contrite. And yet smugness emanates from every inch of him. _Spirits,_ does King hate him. “Gosh, I’m sorry, Mr. King Dice, sir! I don’t know how I could’ve forgotten my manners like that!” Cuphead shrugs with exaggerated sincerity, and his head pops off and spins like the spinning teacup ride on Clown Island. When it lands between his shoulders again, he sniggers, “I’d forget my head if it weren’t attached...!”

King touches a hand to his temple at the sensation of an oncoming migraine.

“Now, was it Table Four, or Five...?” Cuphead thinks aloud with theatrical confusion.

“ _Five_. You insolent little _imp._ ” King Dice hands off the platter of drinks, and Cuphead takes it without any funny business. He does sketch a snide little bow, though, and for that King wants to slap the man silly.

But Mugman is right: the doors close in an hour. There really isn’t any sense in making a scene, and not because it would scare off the customers, or because the boss would come down on them for shirking their duties. On the contrary, the customers and the boss alike would welcome a brawl. All the better to place their bets, after all.

The problem is that _Cuphead_ would be the one slapping _King Dice_ silly.

And they both know it.

King Dice may be leagues ahead of the Terrible Two in terms of managerial competence, and that means his position at the Devil’s side is at least somewhat secure. But that does little to change the fact that the young upstarts can poke and prod and threaten _the King himself_ and just about get away with it every damn time. They’ve already overpowered him once! And King Dice has no recourse for seeking reprimand against the pair, for the Devil himself engages in many practices that a morally upstanding establishment would classify as abuse.

King Dice hardly thinks the Devil would be impressed if he were to come to him complaining of the like.

It's all well and good being a bully, King Dice supposes, up until someone stronger elbows their way into the picture.

Mugman hands a paper slip of drink orders to the bartender, then begins making the rounds to replace loaded ash trays and pick up empty glasses. Mugman is a hard worker, King Dice will give him that. But Cuphead...

King watches as Cuphead cozies up to Table 5 and passes drinks around. He shows off by lighting someone’s cigar with one of those shots of fire, to the uproarious delight of everyone at the table. King covers his mouth to conceal the way his jaw momentarily drops. _Damn, he’s good..._

While Mugman makes his rounds, Cuphead attends to the customers with alarmingly competent showmanship. He endears himself to them with flattery and gallows humor, and he wheedles cigars and stories from between their crooked grins. He's been at it for a few weeks now, and he's only getting better.

King Dice will have to keep a very, _very_ close eye on him.

But he's not going to lose sleep over it, of course. Every poker chip and martini glass and half-smoked cigar can be squeezed for the details of Cuphead's conversations later.

Someone clears their throat politely from somewhere nearby, and King Dice looks down to see Mugman digging his shoe into the ground. “Um, Mr. King Dice...?” He points to the counter where a new platter of drinks awaits. King hadn’t even noticed it arrive. “Could you hand me that order for Table Eight, please?”

They can’t reach the demon-sized counter, so they have to ask King to give them the orders if they don’t want to be jumping around like a pair of lunatics and dropping glasses all night. As much as he can see the simpering and respectfulness for the ploy it is to ease his anger at Cuphead, it nevertheless _does_ smooth the worst of his nerves over. Strange, King thinks, that one of the agents of his humiliating defeat could have anything but a deleterious effect on his mood.

King Dice sighs, resigned to his inexplicable inability to harbor ill-will for the more mild-mannered member of the duo. “All this ‘please’ and ‘thank-you’ won’t work you any wonders down here, kiddo,” King Dice says as he hands off the platter.

Mugman smiles as if they’re sharing a joke. “Well, it works all right on you, Mr. King Dice!”

King Dice curls his lip in disgust and shoos the young man away. Mugman trots off with a chipper smile.

Mugman’s persevering pleasantness is almost as uncanny as Cuphead’s implacable impishness.

As the night gives way to dawn, the tables clear out and the patrons cash in their chips. King Dice oversees it all with a skeleton crew of accountants. The porcelain pair aren’t suited to this sort of work -- they’re not shrewd enough yet to have an eye for fast and large transactions, and neither does King Dice trust Cuphead not to try and skim off the top, nor Mugman not to be swept up in whatever his brother might be scheming.

Today he has them wash glasses with the skeleton bartender. He’d like to cut them loose and have them out of his hair, so to speak, but he knows better than to leave them to their own devices after last time.

King Dice shakes his head to clear it of the unpleasant memory. The two of them will require a watchful eye, if King Dice doesn’t want their behavior getting out of hand.

And as for dealing with Cuphead’s increasingly problematic bouts of aggression... King tries once more to imagine the Devil being sympathetic to his plight, but all he can see is the hairy old bastard laughing in his face and mocking him for being soft. "Felted dice now, are we?" King imagines the Devil taunting. "Should we retire you from casino management to hang from a rear view mirror somewhere? Haw haw haw!"

No, King Dice won't be getting any sympathy from the Devil. But no matter.

The King is more than capable of taking matters into his own hands.

* * *

It’s in one of the back rooms that the Devil conducts his shadier business, away from the eyes of the customers. Not for the purpose of saving face, no. It’s not as if there are any illusions about what goes on in the Devil’s casino. In fact, most of the patrons would be happy to listen in.

But privacy has a way of prying layfolks’ dark and shameful desires from their wringing hands and out into the open. And it’s much easier to strike a deal when all the cards are on the table.

The room is lined with heavy red curtains, and lit by a ring of fire that circumnavigates the oval room and climbs whenever the Devil gets excited or agitated. Naturally, the whole affair is fire-proof. One has to invest in that sort of thing in Hell.

The only other light is the red-hot glow of cigar ends hanging from the mouths of those in attendance, and the occasional glowing pair of eyes.

The boss has called them into a meeting to discuss business. Dividends, and all that. King Dice half pays attention to the Devil's words and devotes the rest of his attention to keeping an eye on Cuphead and Mugman, who scamper around the table distributing drinks to the heads of staff of the casino. King Dice is the chief head of staff, of course, but better he should bring them all. King Dice can’t be bothered to remember the Devil’s long-winded rants and relay the pertinent bits to them later.

The most pressing matter on the table this morning are the as yet uncollected soul contracts. King Dice thinks it's unwise to wait, but the Devil wants to see his debtors squirm. And in the meantime, the miasma of dread his influence holds over Inkwell Isles drives more and more of its citizens to drink, gamble, and smoke to forget their troubles. Which means more business for the casino.

Business is good, and the Devil is in good spirits. King Dice figures he can afford a brief lapse in attention to get himself sorted with a drink.

As if on cue, Cuphead scurries past. King grabs the handle at the back of his head to stop him in his tracks.

“Ow! What the hey!” Cuphead hisses. He reaches for King’s hands, but he can't get a solid grip with the strange angle. “What do you want, Snake Eyes?”

King Dice releases Cuphead, and the young man sprawls to the floor, liquid sloshing out of his head. “Bring me a martini, would you?”

Cuphead huffs, hefting himself to his feet and skulking off to the bar.

King Dice settles back in his chair with a grin and lights another cigar. There are benefits to the presence of the Devil’s new enforcers, King Dice will grant. Tormenting imps is only fun when one is bored beyond imagining. Even then, the mindless little things only dutifully accept mistreatment. Some of them even enjoy it, and where's the fun in that?

Cuphead and Mugman, though -- King Dice expects they’ll provide fresh entertainment for years to come.

Speaking of the little devil, Cuphead trots up to his chair and clears his throat softly. Through the deep, sweeping shadows, King Dice sees the firelight glint on the young man’s porcelain head -- and the martini glass in his hand.

King Dice counts himself surprised. He thought Cuphead might just ignore his request.

As he reaches out to take it, however, Cuphead tips the glass’s contents into King’s lap. The olive tumbles across his pants leg and onto the floor. Cuphead’s eyes glow faintly of mischief in the firelight and remain on King’s throughout, making no mistake of his intent. “Oops!” Cuphead whispers with theatrical surprise. His grin is full of teeth. “Terribly sorry, Mr. King--”

King Dice reaches for Cuphead’s throat, and the young man’s head pops off smartly to evade his grasp. Not to be outdone, King snatches the disembodied head out of the air and places it on the table. Cuphead’s body jumps in alarm as the red and white straw falls between its shoulders, and it scrambles to catch it. King Dice’s lip curls in amusement.

“King!” Cuphead says under his breath, a thread of panic worming its way into his irate tone. “What are you doing? I can’t deliver drinks like this...!”

“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” King Dice murmurs. He puffs on his cigar and sets it in a nearby ashtray. Then he lifts Cuphead to his face and exhales, smoke curling out of his mouth and around the young man’s face. Watching Cuphead’s expression contort as he struggles not to inhale the smoke soothes King’s ego, even as the wasted martini cools and grows tacky in his lap. “After all,” he says, his lips close enough to be concealed from the rest of the dim room’s occupants, “you’ve already brought me something to drink, haven’t you?”

King Dice glances down to see Cuphead’s body wringing the straw in its hands.

“You’re a scoundrel,” Cuphead says miserably. He doesn’t have to raise his voice at all for King Dice to hear him, given their proximity, and his silence makes it clear he understands the predicament he’s in: he’d sooner be made a subject of mockery or passed around the table for everyone’s amusement than given reprieve if he raised a fuss.

King Dice hums against the rim of the young man’s head. “A little late for flattery, don’t you think?”

Cuphead rolls his eyes and scoffs.

King Dice looks up, concerned that someone may have heard it. But he needn't have feared. The Devil is recounting the tale of how he convinced the Root Pack to swear their souls to him, for some reason, and the rest of the table's occupants are either paying rapt attention or else doing a remarkably sound impression of it.

That suits King Dice just fine.

Satisfied his foul play hasn't been noticed and won't be interrupted, King Dice tips the cup toward his lips for a taste of its mysterious contents.

Cuphead screws his eyes shut and grimaces. “Oh my god. I hope you choke.”

King Dice snorts with mirth, but he swallows the room-temperature liquid without incident. It’s nearly flavorless but for a subtle sweetness. As it goes down his gullet, an inexplicable flash of anger passes through him, though it’s gone as quick as it comes. “Why so lukewarm, Cuphead?”

“Ugh.”

King Dice feels something tugging at his jacket, and he looks down to see Cuphead’s gloved hand petitioning for his attention. King scowls at the cup in his hands. “Get your grubby mitts off of me.”

“You first!”

King Dice sets Cuphead down on the table. He keeps him from moving with one hand while he takes a drag of his cigar with the other. Amusingly, Cuphead’s porcelain exterior begins to heat up -- probably more of that anger he inadvertently shared with King Dice earlier. Contrary to Cuphead’s wishes, he expects, he places both his hands on either side of the cup to warm them. He can feel the edges of Cuphead's mouth curling into a sneer.

King Dice pretends to pay attention to what the Devil is saying, if only because he knows ignoring Cuphead will make him angrier; a worthy pursuit in its own right.

Across the room, King Dice notices Mugman standing vigil by the door. It’s where the brothers tend to return when all the drinks have been replenished and the ashtrays refreshed, but it seems Mugman can’t help but look around for his missing counterpart. King Dice waits until Mugman is looking in his general direction, then raises his eyebrows and lifts Cuphead into the air with a small nod. Mugman’s eyes squint in confusion, then go wide in recognition.

Cuphead, with his face turned toward King Dice, does not see the exchange, and returns King Dice’s look with bemusement. King Dice brings Cuphead to his lips and says, “It seems your brother has noticed your absence,” before taking another sip.

The sweet flavor has more nuance than he realized -- does King Dice detect a hint of cinnamon? -- and the emotion that passes through him in a flash is, delightfully, embarrassment.

Cuphead’s hand clenches against the fabric of King Dice’s waistcoat. When King pulls the cup away from his lips, Cuphead’s expression is tempestuous. “You’d better sleep with one eye open tonight, King Dice.”

King Dice smiles gamely at the sincerity of the threat. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

King Dice sets the cup back down on the table and sits back to enjoy the ambience of the room. It’s a pleasant backdrop to the fleeting glow of his victory over Cuphead. Idly, King Dice traces a finger around the rim of the cup, chiming in with a murmur of agreement with the rest of the staff heads when the Devil asks a rhetorical question.

To King Dice’s great alarm, the Devil turns his narrowed gaze on the casino manager himself. “King Dice!” the Devil booms. “What do you have there?”

King Dice nearly swallows his cigar. He beats his chest with a fist as he coughs on the ash and smoke. "Begging your pardon, boss? I ain't got nothing here."

The Devil's grin fills his face. King Dice feels his heart turn to concrete and sink into his stomach. "Now, that obviously isn't true, is it, King Dice?" The Devil nods at King Dice's hands.

Struck with a moment's inspiration, King Dice raises his cigar. “Ah, well-spotted, sir! This is a White Owl cigar.”

“Not _that,_ ” the Devil says, his sickly yellow eyes rolling in his sockets as his teeth grow sharper. “The drink! The drink!”

King Dice can feel the pair of shaking hands seizing his waistcoat with a grip of iron. From his periphery, he can see that Cuphead’s expression is terrified. But King Dice doesn’t dare break eye contact with the Devil.

"Oh, why didn't you say so? It's Irish coffee, sir."

The Devil's bristling hairs settle down to simply unkempt. He looks thoughtful. “Drinking coffee before bed? How self-destructive of you.”

King Dice lifts his cup toward the Devil as if in a toast.

Cuphead is pale as a ghost.

The Devil hums and strokes his chin. Then, catching sight of Mugman by the door, he barks out, “Mugman! Bring me one as well.” The Devil’s eyes rove across the room. “And where’s Cuphead?”

“I-In the kitchen, sir!” Mugman bluffs readily.

King Dice grins. _Good man._

A murmur ripples across the table of similar orders inspired by the first, and Mugman rushes to serve them by himself. His brother certainly won’t be helping him.

King Dice is invigorated by their near-discovery, but he doesn’t take a sip of Cuphead’s contents as he wants to as a reward for a job well-done. The poor man looks about ready to faint, and tasting the emotion attached to _that_ expression sounds wholly unappetizing to King Dice.

Unappetizing, yes.

But informative, too.

King Dice takes a sip, and Cuphead makes a scandalized sound. "How can you still be doing this when we were almost caught just now!"

The liquid, familiar now in taste, goes down smoothly. It's almost a game now, because King Dice has only an instant to identify all the emotions he feels before they're gone again. There is fear, yes, and a great deal of it. Frustration, to be sure, but -- could it be? Does King Dice imagine it?

Or is there a punch of exhilaration, deep beneath the other flavors of the brew?

Amid the din of the conversation, Cuphead is able to speak without drawing attention to himself. “Is this how you get your kicks around here?” he asks incredulously.

King Dice hums with suppressed laughter. “Well spotted,” he commends, and taps Cuphead on the nose. Cuphead rolls his eyes, but appears resigned to remain under King Dice’s thumb as long as the casino’s sleazy manager deigns to keep him.

“I bet you don’t even like Irish coffee,” Cuphead accuses out of the blue, if only to impugn King Dice’s cover story.

“Hah! On the contrary, I do like it. But I would have been satisfied with a martini,” King Dice says pointedly.

Cuphead stubbornly sticks his tongue out. But it doesn’t take long for King Dice to see the acceptance of Cuphead’s role in his own predicament pass across the man’s face. Cuphead sighs, relenting. “Fine... I won’t pour any more drinks on you.”

“Oh, was that on purpose...?”

“Har-dee-har,” Cuphead grumbles. “Now will you let me down? I don’t want to make Mugman do all the work.”

“You don’t seem to have a problem with doing it during the night shift.” Cuphead looks uncomfortable at the accusation. “Having him rush around filling orders while you shoot the breeze with the customers... Aren’t you giving him the larger portion of the work already?”

“Making sure the customer is satisfied is work, too,” Cuphead argues. But his reaction alone tells King Dice he’s touched a sore spot.

King Dice grins. “And what if I’m not satisfied yet...?”

Cuphead looks like he wants to spit on the man. “I could give half a damn if _you’re_ satisfied, you leech.”

They remain that way for a few moments more: Cuphead with his toothless glare, and King Dice with his winning smile as he strokes the rim of Cuphead’s head.

“One more taste for the road, I think.”

“I’d really rather you didn’t.” King Dice lifts Cuphead to his lips. “I hope it tastes like sludge. I hope you gag on it.”

The fact that it still tastes as mild and sweet as before tells King Dice that Cuphead has no control over how the contents taste. When he swallows, however, something strange happens. The feeling that flashes through him is not so much an emotion as a sense of warmth, spreading instantaneously from his toes to his bowtie, and vanishing all too soon. King Dice ponders the strange sensation, becoming lost in thought.

Cuphead takes advantage of his lapse in attention to bite his thumb.

King Dice hisses and drops Cuphead in alarm -- and experiences an even graver sense of alarm when it seems the young man will crash right onto the thinly carpeted floor. It’s one thing for them to be at each other’s throats, but the Devil would subject King Dice to horrors unspeakable if he put half of his enforcing team out of commission.

Luckily, Cuphead’s body catches the man’s head just in time. Of course. Surely he had been waiting for just such an opportunity to make his escape. Cuphead straightens out his straw and drops it in his head. It looks a little worse for wear with all the fretting his hands had been doing, but King Dice expects barely anyone will notice.

Cuphead places his head back on his shoulders, glaring at King Dice all the while. The expression carries remarkably little heat, for all Cuphead's earlier threats.

Strange.

Before King Dice can question it, Mugman appears at Cuphead’s side as if he had been waiting in the wings for his brother to regain his freedom, and the pair of them vanish through the door to the kitchen without a word.

It's just as well, King Dice supposes. He's had his fun. He settles back into his chair with his cigar and begins to cross his legs. The movement reminds him with a rush of cool air of Cuphead's mischief, and of the poor, innocent martini wasting away on his tailored suit.

Scowling, King Dice takes a long, hard drag on his cigar.

**Author's Note:**

> The ship aspect of this might end up being entirely toothless because I literally can't imagine Cuphead and King Dice kissing, and do they even have dicks, and oh my god what have I gotten myself into
> 
> Also I'm not sorry for the puns. If you have more ideas for puns please let me know so this entire fic can just be puns.


End file.
